Find Your Branch

Taking Care of Business, Legislatively Speaking!

Taking Care of Business, Legislatively Speaking!
By Chuck Mulidore
NAPS Executive Vice President

One of my duties as executive vice president is to manage the NAPS legislative portfolio on behalf of our members. This means communicating NAPS’ legislative priorities to members of Congress and seeking to pass legislation that benefits not only working postal managers, supervisors and postmasters, but protects all postal and federal retirees, as well.

In order to accomplish that mission, NAPS must have a political action committee to support those candidates and incumbent legislators who support NAPS’ legislative agenda. Thus, in 1978, the NAPS Executive Board established the Supervisors’ Political Action Committee (SPAC) as the legislative fundraising arm of the organization.

Since then, SPAC has raised millions of dollars to aid political candidates who support NAPS’ legislative priorities. NAPS’ key legislative priorities during the recently concluded 2022 election season were to not only support NAPS’ friendly incumbents, but to meet, learn about and ultimately support the many newcomers to Congress as a result of a large number of congressional retirements.

I am proud to tell you that NAPS directly participated in 122 key races for the House and Senate. As a result of you working with the legislative team at NAPS Headquarters, we were able to elect over 91% of the candidates we supported. I find that to be remarkable!

We intend to use that success rate to impress on new members of Congress, as well as those returning for another term, that NAPS plans to actively seek their support—not only for our legislative priorities, but also to provide necessary oversight to the Postal Service. We must make an increasingly less-transparent Postal Service accountable to its stakeholders, as well as the American public.

The keystone of our legislative agenda each year is the Legislative Training Seminar (LTS) that brings NAPS members from across the country to our nation’s capital to personally lobby members of Congress on behalf of postal and NAPS issues. The in-depth, multi-day training event educates NAPS members on current legislative and political issues confronting them and the Postal Service.

The comprehensive legislative instruction provided at LTS results in effective meetings with lawmakers and their staffs. This will be particularly important for this year’s LTS as there are many new members of Congress who know little about the Postal Service. We must be the ones to educate them—an education that starts at LTS early in 2023.

In addition, key senators, representatives and USPS leaders address LTS delegates. This year, LTS will be held March 26-29 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, VA.

As you can see, NAPS has a strong, targeted legislative message on behalf of our members. How do we make all this happen? Well, it’s you! Your contributions fund SPAC; without those dollars, NAPS’ legislative work could not happen. As we move on from the 2022 midterm elections toward important legislative work in 2023 and the 2024 critical election year, funding SPAC becomes even more important.

How can you help? NAPS’ active, associate and auxiliary members are eligible to donate to SPAC. You can donate online or by sending a check or money order to NAPS Headquarters. If you are a working EAS NAPS member, we encourage you to sign up for easy payroll deductions through our “Drive for 5” program.

We make it easy! Your dollars are an investment to help improve your working conditions and secure your retirement into the future. For more information, look on the NAPS website, www.naps.org, and click on the Legislative Center for additional valuable information.

Rest assured, NAPS has taken care of business—and will continue to—on behalf of our members.